


The sweetest wine

by LadyBraken



Series: Terrorfest- Halloween 2019 [9]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jopson being a good son, Murder, Other, dark!jopson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 11:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBraken/pseuds/LadyBraken
Summary: Jopson was preparing tea when the Captain Crozier came tumbling into the Great Cabin.Jopson was used seeing his Captain tumble. Unlike what some might say, it wasn’t just because of the alcohol. Exhaustion had crept into the man. Darkness and cold often made it hard to walk with grace.And of course, there was the whiskey.Jopson knew all the types of stumblings. This... this was different.
Series: Terrorfest- Halloween 2019 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1521260
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	The sweetest wine

Jopson was preparing tea when the Captain Crozier came tumbling into the Great Cabin. 

Jopson was used seeing his Captain tumble. Unlike what some might say, it wasn’t just because of the alcohol. Exhaustion had crept into the man. Darkness and cold often made it hard to walk with grace. 

And of course, there _ was _ the whiskey. 

Jopson knew all the types of stumblings. This... this was different. 

Crozier’s face was blank. Too blank. Something was wrong. The captain smiled at him : a small, faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He sat far too carefully on his chair, his hand taped too quickly over the wooden desk. His eyes were somewhere. Not on the wall like Jopson thought they should be, but on the floor, at some middle distance. A lock of his hair had fallen in front of his eyes. 

Tap tap  _ tap tap tap. _

_ _ The ship creaked around them.  _ She is my confidant _ had one day said Crozier, his hand brushing over the wooden planks with more tenderness than many men would had thought him capable of.

  
  


The  _ Terror _ creaked again. 

Jopson straightened his back and walked towards the lonely man. 

“Do you need anything, sir?” he asked, as he was ought to. 

Crozier’s eyes darted to him in surprise. Red, wet, brow knitted by unshed tears. He shook with helpless anger. 

“No, thank you, Thomas. I’ll just go in my berth, for now.”

_ Thomas _ . The captain never called him Thomas. Never but in panic. Never but if something else, something enormous, was clogging his mind. 

Never but when he was hurt. 

“Well, let me help you undress, then, sir.”

“I will do it myself, Thomas. Don’t trouble yourself.”

There was a beat. Neither of them moved. 

“With all due respect, sir,” Thomas said softly, “it is my job, and my duty, to take care of you.”

Crozier considered him, head tilted on the side, a close-mouthed smile threatening to spread over his face. There was sorrow in his eyes - a sorrow Thomas had never seen in him before the expedition. 

No that wasn’t true. He  _ had _ seen it before. He had seen it  _ just before _ . When the Captain had come to talk to him about the enlistment. When he just came from Sir John’s home. 

Jopson’s fist clenched behind his back. 

“Very well? Let’s get over this quickly,” said Crozier.

Jopson smiled politely. “Of course, sir.”

  
  


\----

It took barely an hour after Crozier settled before Lieutenant Little came near the reserve, just as Jopson knew he would. The lieutenant’s tired eyes were stuck on the floor, the way he walked labored, forced with fake energy. His shoulders were tense as if trying to hide the head he couldn't keep low.

“Lieutenant.” Jopson saluted with a smile. 

“Jopson. May I help you with something?”

Jopson’s smile spread on his face. “Oh, the captain is sending me. You went with him on  _ Erebus _ , didn’t you? He said you might need assistance because of the cold. A warm meal and a bit of rest would be for the better, if I may say so, sir.”

Little gave him a relieved smile. Still, his shoulder were tight. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as one might be. 

No shoe dropped. Of course not. Jopson was a civilised, considerate man, after all. He let the lieutenant be at ease - food in his belly, warm, eyes half closed. 

“I wonder what put you and the captain in such a state,” he said, “Have the temperatures dropped so much outside?”

“It’s not so much the travel than it is the reception," Little sighed, tired. His questioning eyes lifted to Jopson, and the steward smiled.

His shoulders sank with relief.

Then, he talked. 

\----

Jopson immediately went back into the Captain’s cabin. He had been away for to long . Not enough for it not to be justified by his duties, of course, but too long either way. 

There was nothing. not a noise. No movement. He frowned. The whiskey bottle had been opened, but there was no glass in sight. Jopson crept towards Croziers’s berth. 

The Captain had fallen asleep on his bed. He was still dressed but bundled up in a big ball, knees against his chest. One of his hands fell out of the bunk, still touching an emptied glass. 

He took the tumbler, settled it back onto the nightstand, and pushed the blankets back up Crozier's shoulders. Then, with a tenderness born out of habit, Jopson brushed a stray lock of hair from his captain's brow. 

The man’s eyes opened feverishly. He opened and closed his mouth several times, wobbling between the waking world and the one he saw in the safety of dreams. On of his hands fell on Jopson’s and he squeezed it slightly. 

“He refused to send for help, Thomas,” he whispered. 

“I know, sir.”

Crozier looked like he would fall back asleep, but the words escaped him, unbidden. “I won’t let you die, son.”

Jopson smiled. It was his only true smile that night --- the one that flashed his teeth, made his brows rise. "I know, sir."

Slowly, Crozier closed his eyes and fell back into drunken sleep. Thomas sighed, and tucked the man in his bunk as best as he could. 

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, sir,” he whispered. 

\---

It was easy to negotiate his way to _ Erebus _ . The captain’s orders: no one dared question him on them. No one care to check.

He was welcomed aboard in no time and led to Franklin’s cabin. The Erebus captain was sitting behind his desk, writing what would probably become another endless sermon. Sitting next to him, Fitzjames was drawing like the good son he wanted to be, talented and diligent. 

Jopson smiled. 

“I apologise for disturbing you, sirs.”

Franklin beamed benevolently, Jopson wondered if he had been smiling before breaking Crozier into pieces.. There were few people in this expedition that would have understood the the weight of Franklin's words. Two of them were in this room - the two others still on Terror. Jopson would have talked to Blanky if he wasn’t certain his own methods were safer. 

“It is quite alright, Mr. Jopson. Is there something we can do for you?”

Franklin didn’t offer him tea, didn’t allow him to sit. Of course. 

Jopson smiled.

“I’m here on Captain Crozier’s orders, sir.”

There was a surprised silence. Fitzjames threw a wary look at his mentor, but kept quiet. 

All the better that way. 

“Is that so?”

“Yes Sir. The Captain wanted to… apologise. For his behavior. In front of the men.”

Franklin tapped a hand on his desk.  _ Unnerved _ . 

“And he decided to… send you?”

Jopson tilted his head in a careful show of shyness. “The captain fell sick, sir. Nothing worrisome, but I am afraid Doctor MacDonald refused to let him leave  _ Terror _ , and I had to see about some things with the other stewarts. _ Terror _ is lacking linen.”

“I see.” Franklin looked at Fitzjames in what surely was some sort of amusement. He had let his second - for he surely did not consider Captain Crozier his second - hear his little tirade the other day, after all. Jopson wondered how satisfied it had made Fitzjames. 

It didn't matter. The young man had his faults. None of them were the ones he came to settle.

After a few polite words, Jopson was sent on his merry way. 

As planned.

With a gentle, ever present, polite smile, Jopson made his way through the ship until he found Mr. Hoar. Hoar wasn’t a bad man. Untitled, perhaps, but also kind. Careful. He had one big problem, however.

He was Franklin’s steward.

\---

When Jopson returned to the _ Terror _ , he set straight to his duties.

A day passed. Then another. He was in the middle of washing shirts when he heard the news. 

Hoar and Fitzjames had fallen sick, Brigens, too, in a lesser extent. Mysterious illness. No doubt Stanley would have the answer by the night. But as it were, Franklin was to come aboard the  _ Terror  _ for dinner. 

Jopson went to work.

\---

Franklin entered the wardroom like he owned it. He sat at the front of the table, at the place where Crozier should have been. It was protocol, of course. 

Without Fitzjames’s incessant chattering, it was quiet. Jopson served the food. Served the wine. 

“Oh, I never drink wine.” protested Franklin.

“Not to worry, sir, I had something prepared for you.” And he did. He returned hardly a minute later with a warm, warm brew he knew Sir John adored.

“Oh, thank you. You do have the most competent stewart, Francis.” 

Captain Crozier frowned, weary, like he was expecting a trap. “I do,” he said, “Young Jopson has been most useful and quite diligent in his tasks. The best I had at this post, for sure.”

At once, Jopson burned pink-red and flashed a sheepish grin he was hopeless to stopping, unsure of what to do. He watched Franklin take a sip from the corner of his eye.

“My favorite!” the man declared, “How did you now?”Jopson bowed slightly, as if under the praise. “My Hoar told me, Sir. In his absence, I thought it fitting.”

“Quite the capable young man indeed,” repeated Franklin, seemingly satisfied. 

Jopson nodded to himself. 

“So, Francis, I heard you had been ill. Nothing too worrisome, I hope.”

"Crozier blinked. Jopson quickly slipped by and served him wine --- both to shield his captain from the questioning, boring looks and to give him time to think of an answer.

Crozier passed him a grateful look. "Well, no, of course--"

  
  


\---

Without his stewart and favorite lieutenant, Franklin asked more and more to come to the  _ Terror _ for dinner. Or summoned Francis - but it didn’t change anything. Jopson always went with him. 

One day, Franklin coughed and there was blood in his handkerchief. 

Sometimes, in the dead of night, Jopson wondered if he should feel guilty. But then he'd remember the shaken, hurt look in Crozier's rheumy blue eyes and he found that he didn't care for the expedition's dying leader.

No life was its own, in an expedition. Every crime, kindness, every action rippled like the wave around their ships, breathing their future, shaping their selves. His life wasn’t his own. His acts weren’t for him. 

And Captain Crozier had been hurt.

\----

It took one more week. 

There was a proper burial. Crozier said the words, put the paper back in his pocket, and rifles fired from the side.

When Franklin’s coffin was laid down the cold unforgiving earth, Crozier’s eye met Jopson’s. He nodded, in salute. 

A small smile tugged the corner of his mouth. Knowledge and forgiveness, all at once. 

Jopson nodded back. 

He left the burial early, and rushed to the ship. He had duties to attend to. 


End file.
